


The Second Splinter

by swiftkick



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, BAMF Ginny Weasley, Child Abuse, Dark, Dark Magic, Death Eaters, Dubious Morality, F/F, F/M, Fun, Here We Actually Deal with The Diary and Ginny's Relationship with Tom Riddle, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Horror, Humor, It's A Mixed Bag of Emotions, Mind Manipulation, Morally Ambiguous Character, Psychological Horror, Severus Snape is Extremely Complicated and Not Morally Good, Slytherins are Complicated and We Love Them in This Story, Torture, Women Being Awesome, dark characters, this isn't Gore and the violence depicted is not gratuitous
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2020-06-29 19:46:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19837288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swiftkick/pseuds/swiftkick
Summary: As she fights against the Death Eaters occupying Hogwarts during her sixth year, Ginny makes an unlikely ally. Unlikely because he might not be real, and also because he probably wants her dead too.





	1. Chapter 1

o o o

_muscle to muscle and toe to toe_

o o o

Ginny Weasley sat in the Headmaster's office and pulled at a loose thread on the sleeve of her Holyhead Harpies pyjamas.

She had woken up in one of the seats positioned in front of Professor Dumbledore's desk about ten minutes ago, not quite sure how she'd gotten there. Of course, she was certain that similar incidents like this had been happening all year. There would be times she'd remember being in the Gryffindor common room, and then the next thing she knew she was waiting for breakfast in the Great Hall - with no recollection of the twelve hours in between. But even trying to think about those lapses of memory was difficult for her. It was like trying to understand a missing page in a book. Several pages, maybe, or a chapter.

The door to the office opened. Ginny craned around in the deeply barreled leather seat to see Dumbledore entering. He smiled at her, eyes catching the room's firelight in a pleasant manner. "Hello, Miss Weasley."

"Professor! You're back," Ginny exclaimed. And becoming sheepish, then added, "I'm sorry for being in your office."

She didn't remember getting there.

Dumbledore was not at all surprised at her presence as he walked across the room. "Think nothing of it, Miss Weasley. But yes, as you say, I have returned to Hogwarts. It seems that my services are once again needed. Now, may I ask, how are you?"

"I'm alright," she said. It was a simple answer. The standard answer. Her fingers found the loose thread again and she resumed pulling at it. Mumbling as an afterthought, "Ginny's fine, Professor."

"Mm," Dumbledore might have smiled. She thought she heard it in his voice but when she looked up again he was thoughtful. He said, "this evening has been very turbulent for the school."

He reached his desk and stood there, one of his hands tracing the edges of some of the interesting things littering its surface. Ginny had been watching them earlier. Silvery and odd, some bobbing and others spinning. She didn't know what any of the things did. At his touch, one cooed like an owl.

"Sir?" She asked, not following.

Dumbledore stopped behind his desk and picked up something that had caught his attention. It was circular and luminescent. It looked metallic and solid, but between his fingers its form was fluid and malleable. He continued walking until he had circled to the front of the table again. He sank into the seat next to Ginny's. Wordlessly, he offered the metallic, rubbery thing to her. Ginny accepted it, surprised that it was warm. Not unpleasantly so, but in a comforting way. She pulled at it, stretching it into different shapes.

"This year has been a particularly trying one," he announced. After a beat, he amended with dry humor, "I suppose, so was the last."

"Because of the Chamber, you mean?" Ginny asked. The Chamber of Secrets was all anyone had talked about throughout the year. She remembered that.

"What do you think of it?" Professor Dumbledore tilted his head, watching her carefully behind his spectacles.

Ginny tugged at the silver thing.

"It's scary. I guess," she said. "There's a monster inside, isn't there? Charlie would like that."

Dumbledore nodded and she definitely caught the twist of his smile at the mention of her brother. "There was a monster inside the Chamber until tonight. Harry Potter, with the kind of luck that seems overly fond of the boy," –he meant the bad kind– "encountered it. He was able to defeat it with some help from your brother, Ronald."

This was not what she expected to hear. " _Ron_ defeated the monster?" Harry she could believe. Ron was… " _my_ brother, Ron?"

The Headmaster was smiling again. "The same."

"And they were in the Chamber of Secrets? Boy, is Mum ever gonna be thrilled to hear about that." Ginny sighed and sank deeper into her seat. Ron was getting into some fun adventures ever since meeting Harry. It used to be she was the one that got the two of them into trouble. Feeling a bit glum at having lost something she couldn't exactly name, she asked, "what was the monster?"

At the question, Professor Dumbledore furtively looked her over very closely. He said, "a Basilisk."

"Oh." All the word conjured was an image of a 'bigger than maybe was normal' snake. She didn't know so much about Basilisks. "And Harry and Ron are both alright?"

"Yes. ...And Madame Pomfrey has also been able to revive the other students."

"They were petrified," she said. Ginny vaguely remembered having learned that was the effect when meeting the gaze of a Basilisk indirectly. If a person saw them straight on, then they died. Just like that.

"Any other questions?"

Not related to the monster, Ginny thought. Her hands had stilled around the silver thing. She was watching the office ceiling instead. Someone had charmed it to look like stars. Not the night sky she knew, but stars from somewhere else. "Why am I in your office?"

Dumbledore spoke like he had known this question was coming. It made sense to her, he knew lots of things. "You have been sleepwalking this year. And I regret to say we did not notice sooner."

"I was sleepwalking tonight? …While Ron and Harry were fighting a monster, I was sleepwalking."

"Life is mysterious in so many ways." Dumbledore withdrew a small vial from his sleeve. Or perhaps he summoned it. He handed it to Ginny. "This is a cure for your affliction."

Ginny looked from the vial to Dumbledore's face. "Will that be enough? I think I've been sleepwalking a lot this year."

The Headmaster considered the vial. "I will make sure it is enough."

"I won't lose track of myself any more?"

"No Ginny, You will not lose track of yourself any more," he promised.

Ginny took the vial. It smelled a little like sugar.

"Did I sleepwalk right into your office?"

"No. I thought it best you waited here until your parents arrived –with all that has happened tonight. Would you like to see them?"

"I can see them?" She said, perking up. Arthur and Molly Weasley were in the room a second later, having been waiting just outside the door. Ginny grinned at them, "Mum! Dad!"

They each had red eyes and faces and her mother's cheeks were shiny and wet. For some reason, Ginny was overwhelmed by the sight of them. She felt like – for some reason she thought she had felt like she would never see her parents again. They each had smiles for her but waited for a nod from the Headmaster before they approached her and collectively pulled her into a tight embrace.

"First our Ginny, then Ron," Molly was saying, throat rough with emotion, "you had no idea how worried we were."

"I'm fine, Mum," Ginny said, the words slightly muffled in the hug. "Really. Just some sleepwalking business. I'll be fine soon, really. Got the cure right here."

She watched her father glance at her Headmaster. "What a relief."

They said something more than just their words, Ginny was sure, she just didn't know what. It seemed serious. She raised her eyebrows, suspicious. "Is everything else okay?"

Dumbledore was the one to speak. "There's a feast down in the Great Hall, would you like to go?"

"Isn't it the middle of the night?" It felt like it was, at least.

"Early morning, but a pyjama soiree, you might have it." He reassured her with another smile.

Everyone was smiling at her. Watching, too.

"Sure," Ginny said. Her parents agreed to go with Dumbledore to see Ron and Harry in the hospital wing. Ginny at the last second returned the silver thing to its proper place. Her hands were restless with nothing to hold onto, and so she went back to pulling at threads. Outside the office, Professor McGonagall waited in the corridor for Ginny.

Before he walked away, Professor Dumbledore called her by her full name.

"Yes?" she said.

"Your cure?"

"Oh, right." She had slipped it into a pocket, distracted by her parents' arrival. In one go, she drained the vial. It tasted like sugar water, too. "Thank you, Professor."

"Have a good time at the feast. Your brother will be along shortly."

Ginny smiled this time. Her muscles felt tight in this position, though the sentiment seemed sincere enough.

"Thank you," she repeated, and followed her head of house to the Great Hall.

But even that night Ginny didn't quite fully remember. Not for several years.

o o o

Chapter One

_Fear in Fours_

o o o

The wind at platform Nine and Three Quarters was particularly brutal that day. Ginny's hair whipped across her face with a gleeful vengeance, tangling itself with her eyelashes and catching on the dryness of her lips. It was a dull and grey morning, weather and atmosphere in agreement. There was a static feeling in the air – as it was sometimes before a storm.

For the first time in all her trips to Kings Cross, her father was Ginny's only accompanying family that day. He stood a few paces away, expression distant, his gaze switching between ends of the platform, sometimes landing on questionable people. His clothes were more dishevelled than usual, and his hair was noticeably lighter and thinner than it used to be.

There was also an Order escort with them. Ginny recognised her as one of Charlie's old classmates. She had changed her hair since her time at Hogwarts, a short bob cut that complemented the curves of her face. As Ginny looked at her, the woman noticed and gave a small wink. Much like Tonks would have done.

Which unsettled Ginny in an odd way. She hadn't seen the other Auror since the wedding almost a month ago.

"Where is Tonks, Dad?" She asked, voice a bit rough from disuse.

Her father started at Ginny's question and turned to give her a blank stare. "What do you mean, Gin? She's…well, she's taken time off from work, hasn't she?"

"Why's that?"

The somewhat vacant stare gained an incredulous tinge, as if her father couldn't understand what she was getting at.

"Because of the baby," the other Order member said quietly, picking up on Ginny's ignorance.

"Baby," Ginny repeated dully, not immediately connecting the obvious. And then, " _shi_ –baby?"

Tonks was having a child. With the war gaining momentum, Ginny had learned to suppress her excitement and so her confusion dwindled to a weary sense of disappointment. Feeling lame, she murmured, "I didn't… I should have congratulated her, then."

"I could have sworn Molly mentioned it," Ginny heard her father say to himself. But at this point her parents were so concerned with not telling Ginny anything about the war that they were forgetting to tell her anything at all. As preoccupied as they were with her well being, and she knew that they were, her mother and father were increasingly withdrawn from their daughter.

Ginny didn't mind — as the twins would have agreed – less attention meant more freedom. While she was only sixteen and still a student, Ginny had plenty of ideas to help the Order. She, Luna, and Neville had already covertly discussed their plans to continue Dumbledore's Army at Hogwarts. Just because Harry had his own missions to attend to, that did not mean everyone else was suddenly inept.

A magically modified ' _Ah-HEM_ ' interrupted Ginny's thoughts and she went on tiptoes to peek above the thickening crowd to locate the origin of the offending, and creepily familiar noise.

"Oh no," she and her father groaned simultaneously.

Teetering on a stool, in the exact likeness of a squat, pink toad, was Dolores Umbridge. In her falsely saccharine voice, she started to speak. "According to a Ministry decree, all students are to form a queue and provide identification before boarding the express."

Ginny was scowling and preparing to storm up to Umbridge when a heavy weight gripped her shoulder, halting her. It was her father; and with a grim expression, he steered his child towards the forming line.

"To think they are going this far," he said. "The raids are bad enough for the adults, but now the students as well?"

Ginny had a vague idea of the raids to which he was referencing. She wondered how the Ministry of Magic planned to handle the children, but needn't have bothered, for the answer was apparent soon enough. As her trio got closer to the train, she could her Umbridge's grating voice admonishing different students. "Begley, was it? And your father's background? …I see." — then, as an aside to someone else— "this one too."

To the line, Umbridge called, "next!"

"No, she isn't..." Arthur Weasley looked even paler than before. Ginny was certain it was from rage, as all the blood had gathered where he gripped his hat fiercely. "She's taking down their information! What does she plan to do with it at the school? Blood quarantine?"

The plan was essentially that, it turned out.

When Ginny approached the toad, Umbridge actually scoffed at the apparent conundrum she presented.

"Weasley," Umbridge breathed with all the joy one might have for excrement on the sole of a shoe. "While your family might be curious in its affiliations, there's no questioning your background."

"You would find having brains to be curious," chirped Ginny with a sweet smile of her own, causing her father to moan faintly in exasperation.

Umbridge reddened at this remark and glared down from her stool. "You should take care with your time at school, my dear little child. It would be a real shame for you not to reconsider certain affairs and affiliations while you're there."

The toad said this in her typical sugary tone, but the threat was all too clear to anyone within earshot.

"A real shame," Ginny remarked without any hint of sincerity.

"You will be up in front, Miss Ginevra," Umbridge said. Her bulging eyes narrowed into slits from the wide, stiff grin her face wore.

"Weasley is fine," Ginny corrected immediately. "And I'm capable of seating myself."

"Oh no, no, no. That won't do. Under Ministry orders, the school has decided to encourage students to interact with specially pre-determined groups that will inspire cohesive bonds to further the achievement capabilities of each child. You understand, don't you?"

There was no more room for argument, though her father attempted to protest. Ginny was forced into giving him a quick embrace and goodbye lest she was kept from boarding altogether.

"I'll write!" She promised before being directed further into the cars.

"You'd better not!" her father warned, clearly overcome with apprehension. Ginny felt the desperate smile she had conjured for his sake disappear just as she was pushed out of his sight.

A man who was almost familiar to her was in charge of leading Ginny to her approved car. He was tall and lean, and fairly young. His manner was very restrained. He snapped at her when she waved to Neville, grouching at her "brainless dawdling," and hushed her silent when she tried to deny his order for her to change into her robes so early on the trip. The train had yet to even leave the station.

"You're not to wear anything other than Ministry approved clothing when outside of your dormitory," was the official mandate he gave her. He stuck his hand out, offering a shrunken parcel of what she guessed were the new uniforms. "Now change and get into your group."

The man left her and turned down the car to bark at a group of bewildered Ravenclaws.

Ginny kept her expression carefully blank as she considered her required attire. Around her, other students had already changed into the new robes. There wasn't much of a distinction from the old Hogwarts' uniform, other than lining and trims that matched house colours. Absently, she ran her hand down the solid red thread outlining the close of her robe.

"You've got to be joking me. _Weasley?_ "

Ginny, who had found her compartment some time later, looked up from her seat to see the person who had just joined her. Her stomach fell at Pansy Parkinson's pug-nosed face gaping at her from the door. Like most everyone, she was paler and thinner than Ginny remembered, but the older girl still had the same permanently cross expression framed by the warm blond locks for which she was known.

"Which one? The girl?" A male voice asked. Ginny knew immediately it belonged to Blaise Zabini, even before he nudged his friend into the small compartment. The boy was mostly much the same as he had been at all the Slug Club meetings she had been obliged to attend; coolly stylish and effortlessly arrogant.

"The pleasure is yours," Ginny said in a bored voice before turning to the window to wait for the train to depart from the station. No familiar people remained. She hid her frown, both at her father's hasty retreat and her apparent 'group members.' These two were Slytherins and likely connected to Death Eaters, but they were more an annoyance than any threat. The one time Ron had been right about Malfoy's mastermind scheming, none of the other Slytherins had even been involved.

"How is our fine Potter, little Weasley?" Pansy had situated herself on the seat opposite, and was currently training a curl around her wand. She smiled sweetly as Ginny regarded her. "Unfortunately not dead yet, we can assume. You're still coming to school even though he, evidently, is not."

Despite her lack of physical intimidation, Ginny still had to be careful about any information that could be gleaned from her reaction to Pansy's taunts. Luckily, the long summer had already dulled Ginny's infamous Weasley reactions.

"Harry dumped me," she said flatly, unleashing all the shallow teenage girl she could. "Why should it bother me what he's been up to?"

Pansy's sneer fell for an instant, an unidentifiable reaction flickering over her features.

Blaise was quick to fill the silence. He leaned forward in his seat, smoothing a crisp white sleeve cuff with a casual air, and took a long moment to find her eyes.

"Feeling bitter at all?" He asked, channelling his mother's charm.

"Only from present company."

"You should think about your position, Ginny. It appears your pack has sent you off on your own. You wouldn't want to spend your time at school feeling lonely." A set of perfect teeth flashed from behind a well practised, enticing smile. "Or hurting."

So this was the Ministry's plan: surround subversive people, like herself, with crafty Slytherins. For them to get information out of her, watch her movements, and potentially sway her allegiance. She refused to acknowledge Blaise's warning, and instead noted his continued attention to his sleeve.

"Something the matter with your forearm, Zabini? Got an itch?"

Had he been branded with the Dark Mark?

His hazel eyes found a spot of the floor. "Like I would mar my skin with such –"

"Blaise," Pansy snapped, finding her voice suddenly.

Ginny couldn't help her eyebrows as they inched upward, surprised. As careful as Zabinis were with vows, Ginny wondered what it meant that Blaise had neglected this one in particular.

Pansy recovered, glancing carefully at Ginny, "your tie is crooked."

"That's not the only thing that's crooked," Ginny supplied, earning a huff from the other girl.

Pansy gave her a flat stare. "Your humour is one toned and exhausting, Weasley. At least try harder."

Ginny would have laughed had it been an observation belonging to anyone else. Instead she felt a touch indignant and a little reprimanded and there was a smart urge to stick her tongue out. She changed the subject. "How many people in these groups, anyhow?"

"Four, maybe five." Zabini shifted a shoulder as a dignified sort of shrug. It was an answer they would all know soon enough, so he must have thought it harmless to respond.

"That'd be nearly a hundred groups." She wondered over the actual usefulness of so many cells.

"Not quite." The compartment door was blocked again. It had been left open and Ginny hadn't paid much mind to the occasional person passing it. Currently, Zacharias Smith was leaning on its frame. His robe was trimmed in an undisturbed line of bronze, but Ginny had never known a person with less Hufflepuff qualities. Pansy and Ginny shared a disappointed groan at Zacharias' arrival (" _uuugh_ " and a skywards," _you're the worst!_ "), only to then glare at one another, each offended by the sudden commonality.

"Oh sod off the lot of you," Zacharias grouched as he dropped onto the cushion next to Ginny. His nose lifted into the air as he looked over Blaise, probably imagining some sort of male competition in the equally posh boy.

"As I was saying," he continued, "I counted just about fifty or so groups. Half the school has opted out of returning this term."

"You can't be serious," Ginny demanded, although she was the only one. The Slytherins looked unsurprised. Even a little triumphant on Pansy's behalf.

"And there're few new Hogwarts Professors, as well. Apparently there's a new D.A. Professor."

Ginny shook her head. "You mean D.A.D.A.?"

"No, D.A." Zacharias actually gave a somewhat significant look to Ginny while reiterating this. Like Dumbledore's Army, she wondered. He clarified without her having to ask. "As in the Dark Arts."

"Well, that will be entertaining at the very least," Zabini offered with a snide upturn of his lips.

"Oh please," Ginny said, waving a hand. "It's a school. It's not like they can teach anything serious. They'll probably talk about hiccuping jinxes or something."

The conversation naturally dissolved into bickering from that point on, with Ginny arguing with everyone, including Zacharias. She figured, as blood traitors, she and Smith had been placed in the same group with the knowledge they didn't get on well. No support between them to form a bond against Blaise and Pansy.

"Like house points will matter! We're in a war!"

"Oh thank the skies above," Pansy said, interrupting Ginny's row with Zacharias. She hopped to her feet, foregoing suavity. "I never thought I'd be so glad to see the castle."

"Indeed. I thought I'd hex my head clear off if I had to listen to this nonsense any more." Blaise looked from Zacharias to Ginny like they were toddlers with a toy torn between them. He smirked. "Besides, with a Slytherin headmaster, there's no question as to who will win the cup."

"You're all mad!" Ginny brought a hand to her brow in frustration, ignoring her company. "This is pointless. When will you open your eyes?"

Pansy minimised her trunk with a flick of her wand and then rested her hands on her hips, giving Ginny a tight look. "When will _you_ open your eyes, Weasley? You're an ignorant, aesthetically displeasing, _poor_ blood traitor, but you're still a pureblood. Pick the right side and maybe your precious school year will be easier. You're just making this harder for yourself."

Without another word, but with one more loathsome look, Pansy left the compartment, beckoning Zabini to follow.

Ginny had the urge to pull out her own hair in frustration. "Is that really what it's like for them? Just thinking about their own good and burying their head in the mud when everything around them is falling apart?"

"What's wrong with looking out for yourself a little?" Zacharias asked honestly.

Ginny shoved him back into his seat as he tried to stand and left as well.

Once off the train, she tried to navigate through the nervous mass of people, looking hopefully for Neville or Luna. She couldn't make out anyone clearly in the evening haze. Without Hagrid's recognisable presence there to herd away firsties, it was difficult to orient herself at all. In his place, Ginny did notice, was a plump little witch —perhaps one of Umbridge's toad spores— croaking angrily over the students.

Ginny was staring incredulously at the awful, vaguely familiar round woman when someone grabbed at her arm. Instinctively, she broke their grip with a twist of their thumb and reached for her wand.

"Seamus!" she said, halting her movements.

"Ow, _ow_ , thumb back, please..." With his sandy haired locks trimmed short and his face free of his typical grin, the seventh year boy didn't look himself at all.

"Oh, sorry!" Ginny quickly relented her grip.

In the time she had spent in his company, typically alongside Dean, she'd never seen Seamus so trim, lean and serious. But then, she realised belatedly, it was precisely that Dean was not around that Seamus was tense. Her stomach tied itself into a sour knot.

"No, I'm sorry. I tried calling your name, but the crowd, you know?" Seamus said. "Carriage?"

Ginny nodded vigorously and followed Seamus as he threaded his way between students. It occurred to her that there really was a discernible difference in the amount who had arrived for school this autumn as opposed to last. She couldn't believe how many people she knew wouldn't be back at all.

She wondered where Harry was at the moment.

Inside the carriage, both students were very aware of the possibility their conversation was not private. Even though it seemed they were alone for the ride, there was a strong sense of being watched. Avoiding Harry and other friends altogether as a topic, they talked about classes and whether or not they would have Hogsmeade outings.

"Who do you think the Prefects are this year?" Ginny asked just as the short trip ended. Seamus exited before her, holding out a hand to help her down from the carriage. Ron and Hermione were the seventh year Prefects, but were obviously both gone. She wondered if the Prefects from her year were among the missing half of the student populus.

"Beats me," Seamus answered. "If Umbridge had any say in it, all the Prefects are probably those Inquisitorial Squad prats."

Ginny snorted, but thought it wasn't actually too ridiculous a suggestion. "McGonagall would never allow that."

"As if it were up to her." Pansy and Blaise were standing outside the entrance doors, and had apparently heard the question.

"Lay off, Parkinson" Seamus warned, positioning himself between the two girls, sensing the hostility.

Pansy flashed a pretty smile instead. "You do know, Weasley, McGonagall didn't take over for Dumbledore."

Her cryptic message for Ginny was lost in the quick rush as the castle doors opened and students pushed inside. But they didn't stray far apart, because there was an immediate announcement for their assigned groups to meet again before the Great Hall would be opened. Both girls shared a contempt look with the other and stayed their feet almost defiantly.

Ginny let her eyes wonder over the castle interior to keep them from accidentally meeting the gaze of any of her company. She considered the tapestry of the Founders for a long moment, thought of the so-called virtues each had hoped to find in their houses, before switching her attention to the students once more.

"How is it all of the groups have at least two Slytherins?" Ginny asked aloud.

To her left, Zacharias spun around and a second later exclaimed she was right.

Pansy rolled her eyes. "Tell me again why you weren't sorted into Ravenclaw, Weasley."

"What does that mean?" Ginny immediately shot back.

Blaise answered, speaking aloud as he made the realisation. "There are more Slytherins because none of the muggleborn students have come back."

Zacharias turned once more and Ginny this time joined him as they each tried to place familiar faces. Her chest tightened uncomfortably. She said very quietly, "I hadn't noticed."

"And you're supposed to be their ally?" Pansy sneered. She flipped a lock of curled hair over her shoulder and physically turned from the circle they reluctantly formed.

"There are other students gone, too," said Zacharias. "Wayne's not here, either. His mother used to work under Scrimgeour, before…"

Before certain parties had infiltrated and taken over the ministry and Hogwarts, Ginny finished mentally. Aloud she said only, "yeah."

"A Weasley brat, what a non-surprise," said a raspy voice. Pansy visibly started at its sound. Ginny turned to identify the speaker. It was a man. He had a head of balding grey hair above shoulders that curled inwards. But it was his deeply set, beady eyes and slanted mouth that Ginny recognised. Just a few months ago he had been trying to curse her into oblivion.

"What are you doing here," she almost spat at Amycus Carrow.

"Ah-ah-aah," he tutted, very happily and in an unappealing fashion. "It's _Professor_ Carrow."

"Why aren't we allowed into the Great Hall yet?" Zacharias asked, either ignoring or unaware of the anger Ginny was very thinly containing. Her fists curled so tightly that her arms began to shake all the way up to her shoulders.

Amycus didn't acknowledge the question.

"Mr. Zabini," he said, greeting Blaise. Blaise nodded his head and offered nothing else. Carrow stopped his eyes on Pansy next. What he might have thought to be a charming smile pulled at his lips. It turned Ginny's stomach. "Miss Parkinson, lovely to see you. As always."

The expression the man wore appeared to turn Pansy's stomach as well. Her eyes closed and she exhaled a long breath through her nose.

"Are you teaching here now, Mr. Carrow?" Pansy queried. It sounded polite enough, but her she seemed to have trouble looking at the man.

"He is," answered someone else. Ginny had a split second to think, wryly, that their little circle was gaining quite an audience.

And then she noticed Professor Snape had been the one to speak.

A second later and her wand was in her hands, pointed squarely at Snape's chest. She forgot about Carrow. Forgot about Pansy and Blaise. Forgot about loud-mouthed Zacharias Smith. All she remembered was that this man in the sight of her wand was the one who killed Professor Dumbledore. She remembered this and nothing else.

Snape was unaffected.

"Can't decide on a spell, Miss Weasley?" His drawl was as curt and somewhat disinterested as ever.

Ginny fumed. Unfortunately, he was right. She didn't know where to start. Which jinx? Which hex? What kind of punishment would be appropriate for this murderer? She didn't know. She just reacted, understanding, at the very least, she should always have her wand between herself and this traitor.

A muttered Expelliarmus and another second later, Snape was snatching her wand from the air.

"Brandishing your wand with intent to strike your Headmaster? Twenty points from Gryffindor," Snape admonished, a satisfied twist lifting his lips. "You're lucky I'm being generous on our first day back, Miss Weasley."

"What – ?" was all she managed, looking from her empty fingers to Snape's ugly face, and back to her fingers. Anger, fear, confusion. The long tamed Weasley temper made a tentative effort for return. She flung her arm out, pointing it again at Snape. Directly aimed on his heart. "You killed him."

She wanted to yell. She wanted every student in the over-crowded entrance hall to shut up and pay attention. This man killed Dumbledore, and _she wanted them to know_. But no one outside of an arm's reach was paying any attention. Even Blaise and Pansy seemed only mildly aware of the interaction. Pansy, in fact, had started shaping her fingernails with a transfigured lock of hair, almost as if trying to will herself very far away. Ginny swallowed, noticing her throat had gone dry.

Was she losing her mind? Was Ginny Weasley the only person in this room who knew what Snape had done?

How was he _here_?

"I'll tell," she said to Snape, something ugly in the pit of her stomach. She was barely conscious of herself beyond the buzzing between her ears. "I'll tell them where you are."

She would tell her parents. She would tell the Order. She would tell Harry. And they would come and squish Snape proper like the bug he was.

Snape's expression didn't change. He stepped forward and quickly closed the gap that had been safely separating them. Ginny tried not to lean away as she craned her chin up to meet the man's eyes as he loomed over her like a dark tower.

As a professor Snape had never scared her. In this moment she was terrified. Her eyes watered as she refused to look away.

"Oh yes, I'm sure you will tell them." He was hissing the words. "I've no doubt your lips are as loose as your legs. Go moan to your precious Potter. I'll be happy to meet him when he stumbles in, charging like a fool."

Ginny blinked back tears. It wasn't just water, she admitted to herself.

Professor Snape reached for her hand, his touch that of a corpse to the hot blood in her veins, and he pressed her wand back into her palm. "It's a good thing, Miss Weasley, you've returned to school. Perhaps you can learn what to do with this."

Stepping away and addressing Zacharias, Snape said, "the staff is finishing arrangements in the Great Hall, Mr. Smith. Now close your mouth already, you look like you're waiting for something to take roost in that obnoxious cave."

With a dramatic swish of robes, Snape walked away. Amycus Carrow slunk after him. Ginny didn't move. She willed her legs to stop trembling and her eyes to dry.

Wanted Killer Severus Snape was the Headmaster of Hogwarts. A known Death Eater, and someone who had tried to cast an _Unforgivable_ on her, was now a professor at her school. She was stuck in the company of three people she very much disliked and felt the isolation of being an island in a vast sea. An ominous setting for the coming year, Ginny thought, and there was no comfort in the walls of her school.

"…I'm not the only one who heard Snape call her a slut, right?" Zacharias chimed in eagerly, as ever helpful.

Ginny wiped at her face and cast a bat-bogey hex at him. She earned another negative five points for her house.

o o o


	2. Stripping the Treads

o o o

_from medic from colleague, friend, enemy, foe_

o o o

Ginny and Ron sat along the edge of the square's single fountain, Ron forlornly watching as the twins dogged after Charlie to the potion's store.

“Why can't we go with them?” He asked, but both he and Ginny knew it was because, as their mother had whispered with indignant worry, they were ' _too young!_ '

“'Least we got to sit here,” Ginny told him. “That's new.”

It was the yearly trip to Diagon Alley before the start of school and this fall the twins were going to start at Hogwarts. It was a Big Deal for the Weasley family. Everyone was excited and in high spirits save for the youngest two.

“Without Fred and George, we've lost our numbers advantage against Mum and Dad,” Ron said as they lost sight of their brothers in the crowd. He was annoyed. “We're never going to win arguments with just the two of us kids. We'll be stuck sitting at fountains the whole year.”

He had a point.

She didn't feel discouraged. She refused to. “Just means we got to be more clever, innit.”

Ginny pulled at the front pocket of her smock, an artistic bit of patchwork that her mother had fashioned in the shape of a lion, and looked into the shadowy space, charmed to hold more than appearances would allow. She pulled out first the sandwich given to her for lunch and then rummaged around for the basket she had stored earlier in the morning.

Ron eyed her sandwich, more interested in the food than her other pursuit.

“Can I –?”

“Yeah,” she answered, correctly guessing his intention as he grinned and swiped up the sandwich.

“What are you looking for?” He smushed a bite into his mouth and raised his eyes as he watched her, becoming more curious and less annoyed now that at least his hunger was abated.

Taking a moment more, pushing aside a spare shoe lace, spell-o-tape, partially completed tree house schematics, a comb, a slingshot missing its elastic, she finally found what she was looking for and retrieved the basket from her pocket. Holding up it up for him to see, she announced, “this!”

Ron gave the mushrooms she had collected a critical look. Not really understanding her direction. “...Ooh-Kay.”

She left him there eating her lunch and set to work determining a fair target. Male, probably. Men were easier to trick according to the twins. Younger, too. Ginny scrunched her features as she looked over the different wizards walking through and loitering in the square. A whisper of a man wouldn't be any good, and that one over there was too smug, that one was in the middle of a disagreement with his companion. She finally settled on a group of three men who were adults, but not like the Grandpa Weasley sort of age. Not quite her parents ages.... Younger than that but older than herself.

“Hey mister,” she said, planting herself next to one of the men. “Mister, I think you need some of these.”

The man turned from his friends to blink down at her. Frowning, he said, “get lost, twit.”

“No, I think you should use these, mister,” Ginny insisted right back, returning his expression with a frown of her own. A frown of concern, of course.

“Scram already.”

Ignore and proceed, she decided.

“You see my dad over there?” She asked, pointing over her shoulder to where Arthur Weasley stood, deep in a conversation about something important with her mother and Percy and Bill. “That guy has seven kids! Seven. You think that happened all on its own? No way. He eats a little bit of these every day and that's how that guy has seven kids, I'm telling you.”

“Is she hocking mushrooms? Really?” One of the adults asked the other.

“That's Bill Weasley, isn't it?”

“She looks like a Weasley.”

“You Bill's sister?”

“She's probably an Auror or something. What do they call it? Like she's trying to pretend to hock mushrooms and then she'll arrest us or something.”

Ginny realised the three weren't adults but rather teenagers. Which was probably better for her.

“I'm trying to help you guys out, innit. _Seven_ kids. You get what I'm saying?”

“Your family doesn't know about contraceptives?” The smallest of the three pointed out while another said, “these some sort of Get-Laid Shrooms?”

“She does live in a forest or something. You know, out there in the middle of nowhere?”

“Bill says it's a farm.”

Ginny nodded her head at the boy who had lost some of his sneering to contemplate her basket a little more closely. “We're close to _the woods,_ you know? Pureblood birthright and all that.”

Fred always said a little bit of insinuating always help a small seed grow. Or something like that.

“You're not an Auror, right?”

Ginny rolled her eyes and kicked a leg up so that she could pull at the tip of her boot, where Percy's Sticking Spell had worn off and her stockinged toes peeked out from the loose sole. “Sure, I'm a big scary Auror and I'm gonna wear boots that don't even close. You want some help or not?”

One of the three picked up a mushroom. “These make you see stuff?”

She didn't think on it and lied, “of course. Gotta dry them out first though and only use 'em on a new moon.”

“You really going to take her stupid bits of tree rot, Mills?”

“They're free, right?” The one named Mills asked, smirking down at Ginny.

“Five sickles a piece.”

“What a load!”

“Ten sickles,” Ginny said, snatching back the mushroom. “And mind the product, lads. Hands like trolls, I swear.”

“You think this is Bill's secret on the pitch?” The boy who was neither small nor Mills asked the other two. “He really stepped his game up last year...”

“That's the game you're gonna focus on?”

“He went out with Sierra Amber for two months and dumped _her_ for _Rhea Ross_.”

“Shit, I forgot he landed Rhea...”

Ginny kept her face blank as the three seemed to all come to a conclusion together, but internally she pumped her arms in the air. _Hooked_ , she thought.

“You said five sickles, Weasley?”

After that trip to Diagon Alley, she and Ron had a stash of candy for the next two weeks and her brother finally started to believe there was more to her than being a seventh wheel, that it didn't have to be miserable and directionless when it was just the two of them. Ginny was someone worth having around, she was capable, a comrade, a pretty good confidant.

At least for that one year. But that changed once Ron met Harry and Hermione the following year. And when Ginny arrived to Hogwarts for her first term, she was very much alone.

o o o

Chapter Two

Stripping the Treads

o o o

The Welcoming Feast was quiet and sombre and the sorting ceremony a cheerless affair, and Ginny had spent most of the evening making a mental note of every person who had and had not returned to school.

Five of twelve girls in her year had not returned and it was almost the sole topic of conversation as people returned to the tower for the first time that year.

“I'm going to write Harry immediately,” Ginny promised Neville as she darted up to her room to get a quill and ink to start the letter.

She came to a sharp halt when she saw the beds, or rather what sat at each of their footboards. Along with the other girls in the room, Ginny found her trunk waiting for her with its lock undone. Opening it, she saw a slip of parchment paper inside signed by the Ministry's Department Head for School Welfare and Security. Reading the notice, it stated several of her items had been seized for further examination after they were found during a “randomised” sweep of her possessions.

“Bloody...” she whispered.

“They must have done this during the feast...” said one of the other girls, in a similar position. “They took my home-stock potions ingredients.”

“They took my novels...”

“Who the hell's this bloke Ruddgrim?”

“How bout what the hell is the Department for School Welfare and Security and all that shite?”

“Never heard of it.”

“It's new,” Ginny said. She dropped the list of her “confiscated” things, dully accepting she might never see them again. “It's how they can manage us more efficiently. Like how they've got us split up into these 'diversity' groups.”

“When did we even have any Ministry officials here? Were they in the castle?”

“Maybe they're leaving now?”

Ginny was the first to a window facing south, towards Hogsmeade, to check. She was soon crammed between the others as they each tried for a look as well.

“Might have left by floo,” someone said, after a moment of checking the grounds.

“Sodding...speaking of, they took _my_ floo powder, you know?”

Ginny eventually remembered to go back to the common room, where she heard most of the Gryffindor House was dealing with the search and seizures fallout. She spent the first night of her Sixth year spitting and cursing her various frustrations in vicious circles, eventually ending with her and Neville feeling sorry for each other in front of the fire until they fell asleep there.

The first morning of classes, they walked to the Great Hall together and nodded with conviction at one another, silently agreeing that there would be no more wasted hours of moaning. Inside the doors, they split away to their assigned tables.

 _Assigned tables._ Not House tables, but assigned seats at little square pub tables where they were forced to endure meals with their new student groups.

Neville went to sit beside Greg Goyle while Ginny weaved her way to the front of the hall. In unusual form, the entire faculty was in attendance for the first breakfast of term. She tried not to grimace as she once more saw her favourite professors – McGonagall and Flitwick – each placed, stone faced, next to a Carrow sibling. McGonagall had the poor luck of also having Snape to her right side. Probably placed there to keep her under his thumb, but Ginny liked to think her Professor only stayed as a buffer between him and the students.

She very minutely inclined her chin as McGonagall caught her eye. A short, powerful connection of simmering resistance and a bond in the knowledge of the truth. Leaving the Tower had been a struggle that morning, and Ginny had considered not going to class at all – but then it was also a point to remain unaffected in the wake of the changes her school was undergoing. That was McGonagall's approach and Ginny resolved the same.

Let Snape try and rile her. She watched the man, perfectly ignoring her glare, until she was at her table almost directly under him.

At her table, she was greeted by Blaise Zabini, which still took her by surprise despite his apparent appreciation for manners. She tore her glowering away from Snape and returned the pleasantries out of habit. She quickly recovered herself and asked, “has the post come?”

“Not yet.”

Resisting a furtive look to the head table, she also asked, “and were your trunks searched as well?”

“What was that?” But Blaise wasn't able to say anything else and Ginny took the answer as a 'no.'

“Have you seen this?” Zacharias Smith declared to the table, interrupting her and speaking to Blaise and Pansy rather than Ginny. Which was more understandable when he clarified, “ _all_ Seventh years are required to take the Dark Arts together, first thing, _every_ morning.”

“You're joking. What about qualifying? Or –”

“But I wasn't _in_ D.A.D.A. this year...”

While the three shared some mild unease, Ginny opened her schedule to see she had her first class with the other Carrow in Muggle Studies, all Sixth years, every morning, _then_ they had Dark Arts directly after.

“Joy,” she said, feeling nothing of the sort. She poured coffee for herself and, from her particularly grumpy state, felt a pang of misery at no longer being able to enjoy the fresh eggs, home grown potatoes, and her mother's hand-kneaded bread of The Burrow.

“Do you really drink the coffee here? It takes worse than a Harpy's tit,” Blaise said, frowning at Ginny with a condescending sort of sadness. He smirked, casting a sly glance. “Smith, you would know. Does it taste like Harpy tits?”

“What? Oh, _come on_. That was _two years_ ago. And it was _hypothetical._ ”

“Don't be so shy. Sure, not all of us can handle firewhiskey. But then, you really shouldn't have lost that bet...”

“You've no place. The skirts you've been with _without_ anyone having leverage on you...”

Ginny picked at a bowl of fruit as her three table mates chittered like children. “This is your state of conversation when there's a literal war about to start. Brilliant.”

Predictably, no one was amused by her observation.

“Oh, sod off,” Zacharias sneered. “Like you've seen anything of a _war,_ Weasley. That little excursion to the DoM could have been a tea for all we know.”

Thinking back to Bill's wedding and the end of last term, she wanted to correct him otherwise, but settled for rolling her eyes. She scoffed, “yeah, so I've been told before.”

According to her family, she was too young for the war. She was too young to have curses and hexes sent at her by Death Eaters _three_ times already in her life. Ginny _couldn't_ know about the war! It wasn't as if she were already _in it_.

“But you have seen other things,” Blaise said to Ginny, his tone soft and nearing sympathetic. His humour fell away and there was a sharpness to his words that caught in the atmosphere. Both Zacharias and Pansy quieted, loud in their sudden attention. Blaise was next to Ginny and he leaned towards her, appearing very sincere. She thought he meant maybe the wedding, but he said, “your first year, wasn't it?”

She felt her skin pale as her blood drained with a sudden sinking swell of fear. Ginny took a quick breath but she didn't know what Blaise was saying. She stuttered on a sound and then Blaise leaned away, nonchalant.

“Well, it's not like any of us _really_ know what happened then. Rumours, is all.”

Surrounded by a hundred people and Ginny could hear her heartbeat louder than anything else. Worse yet she didn't know why. Screwing up her face she pushed out a harsh, _tch_ , from her teeth. “What's that even supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” he said evenly. “Forgive me for bringing up such a sensitive subject.”

But she was up from her chair and her hands were cold and bone white, dread in her for some reason and she wanted to flee. Trying to cover her discomfort, Ginny transfigured her mug into a lidded canister. She might have said other meaningless things as she stalked from her table.

Her fast footsteps couldn't match the thudding beat in her chest.

The Entrance Hall gave her some illusion of freedom and space, its multi-stories-high front wall and doors enchanted to glass for the warmer months, allowing a perfect image outdoors. She could see the courtyard, the drying autumnal grounds, open grey skies, and the expanse of the forest between Hogwarts and Hogsmeade village beyond. The morning light stung her eyes from where she watched inside the castle walls.

When she was younger, being trapped indoors had the simple solution of visiting Hagrid and his hut that had been like a miniature home to her. Ginny had started that habit in her first year. First Year. She remembered feeling something of isolation, exhaustion, and uncertainty, but that could be said of anyone going away to school after a sheltered life.

Ginny's first year meant...nothing to her.

The fear that laced its way down her middle told her otherwise.

-o-

The amazing thing about Muggle Studies as taught by Alecto Carrow was that the woman mentioned _actual_ muggle things. Muggle understandings and portrayals of magic in particular. Of course, she focused on the stories, fictional and real, of witch hunts. The purpose of the lesson being that Muggles didn't understand, that they feared and loathed, magic and wanted its users gone. Eradicated in violent, senseless, comprehensive ways.

But Ginny's own lack of Muggle literacy had her biting her tongue. “This is just _wrong_ ,” was as far as she had managed to argue. Muggles liked magic now, she thought. Some of them were fascinated by it – just like a reversal of her father. At least, she was pretty sure it could be like that.

Her classmates who were raised in mixed families were more eloquent on the subject, but they were silenced and had House points taken when they tried to refute the lesson.

“Your narrow experience with muggles, when looked at against a larger body of evidence is only a fractional and minor component of the larger spectrum. Blindly taking your sole anecdotal account as a template for muggle behaviour is _not_ how this classroom will be presenting _fact_ ,” had been Professor Alecto's retort.

“Do you think he'll be any different from Professor Alectoad?” Ginny asked Luna as they walked together to their second hour. She rhythmically bounced a stack of books against her thighs as she walked, feeling energetic and fidgety after having to forcefully keep herself from jumping up every time Professor Carrow had said something awful in class. And now she would have to deal with the brother. She tacked on, “he's the less ...refined one of the two, that's my sense.”

“A wild card,” Luna agreed. She had transfigured her quill into a bubble wand in class, having _boldly_ forgone note-taking, and was now twirling a trail of shimmering, multi-coloured baubles behind her. When they popped there was glitterfall and the scent of lilacs.

“Do you think his lesson will be a 'join the Dark side' propaganda puppet show?”

Luna smiled, a dreamy expression. “Imagine he's quite good at crafting, though?”

“Such a waste! All that talent robbed by insecurity, prejudice, and hatred. Oh, what a shame.”

“His calling missed.”

“Now he has to settle for re-enacting the daily ops to the slackjaw, knuckle-draggers in the ranks with his under-appreciated art.”

“On accident he makes a Harry puppet without his scar and The Boss is _very_ upset.”

“It's the only proof that at least at _one_ time Big Bad Boss Boy had been able to lay a finger on the Chosen One.”

“Big Bad Boss Boy?”

“I'm hoping the name catches on. So much more fun than He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.”

They shared muted little giggles and pulled a coping shroud of normality around them until they arrived in the former Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. Outside the door a crowd of sixth years were hovering with anxious faces. The look of the room hadn't changed much from Snape's time as its inhabitant, but Ginny realised a moment later the reason for their hesitance in going inside; there was a telling smell of sickness in the air coming from the empty classroom. Her insides tightened in sympathy but she clenched her teeth and breathed lightly through her mouth to avoid the worst of it.

“This was Neville's class before us,” she told Luna. “All the seventh years together like ours.”

With no sign of their professor and with no one else stepping forward to take care of the obvious, Ginny was the first to enter She took out her wand and vanished something unpleasant on the floor that she didn't bother to look at properly. She asked Luna for more bubbles to mask the lingering smell while she opened the windows. Tentatively, the other students followed their lead.

There was a screeching creak and as one the students turned to see the classroom door shutting.

“Five points from Gryffindor and Ravenclaw for unauthorised spell casting,” said Professor Amycus Carrow as he revealed his hiding spot behind the door. The whites of his eyes were very visible as he leered at the group. He spoke in a high and wavering voice. “What a habit you have, Miss Weasley. This is the second time in less than a day you have felt free to abuse your magic.”

Not thinking the possible repercussions through, Ginny snorted, unimpressed with the man.

“Everyone sit _now._ ” His smile dropped and so did his airy tone. The male Carrow walked to the front of the desks. “Except you, Miss Weasley.”

Ginny stopped short from dropping into a seat. Frowning, she was slow to shrug off her book bag and empty her arms.

“Yes. Everyone here knows Miss Weasley, I'm sure. Youngest of her brood, the only little girl in the hatch. The last of the family still in school, it seems.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Ron's sick, isn't he.”

“Of course, of course. Perhaps it's the _illness_ in your family that's muddled your mind?” Carrow strolled a pace back and forth in front of the class as he spoke, trying to look smooth as he twisted and turned his wand in his hand.

“How's that?”

“You hexed a fellow student last night, didn't you, Miss Weasley? Dealing out a punishment at your own discretion –”

Oh. That. Ginny rolled her eyes. “He was being a _twat._ ”

“– and so I'm assigning you detention to be served immediately. Come to the front of the class.” The man ceased his strange walking and settled a crude sort of look on her. Satisfaction, maybe.

She hesitated, and tucked her wand in her hair, not thinking she would need it while wanting it close, but Carrow told her to keep it out. Stiff in her movements, she walked to where Carrow waved for her to stand.

“What was it you cast upon our young Mr. Smith?”

Ginny lifted her shoulders, feeling awkward. “It's just a hex I've been using since I was a kid. It's just something I made up.”

“Ah. I see. Well, you should demonstrate for us, since you seem so eager to use it.”

She had the thought he meant for her to use it on herself, but then Carrow made a show of looking around the room and narrowing his focus in on a shy Ravenclaw girl.

“Miss Fawnstone, how about,” he said, pointing. His eery snarl of a smile was back on his face.

Ginny watched Helene shrink into her seat. She shot her “professor” a withering look. “I'm not thick. You're giving me detention for casting it, why would I use it again?”

“Because _I'm telling you to._ ” The turn in his presentation was a bit much for the classroom and everyone, Ginny included, was put-off by the man and silent.

But she was a stubborn person, and Ginny shook her head. “I won't.”

“You won't?” He repeated, and he wasn't as angry as she thought he would be at her refusal. Almost like he had wanted her to refuse. “Class, this is the perfect example of a reckless, insubordinate pupil refusing to adhere to simple directions.”

“You were telling me to –”

“ _Silencio_ ,” Carrow cut her off, his wand pointed at Ginny and the rest of her words were blanks from her lips. It was like the whole room were under the spell and no one made a sound but for Carrow. “I would like you all to know that you will not be in any danger on behalf of your impudent, reckless fellow classmates. Those who see themselves above the rules, who see it fit to manipulate others for their own good, will not be tolerated in this school any longer.”

The next spell he cast Ginny heard but didn't believe.

When she was ten, she fell off a broom after attempting and failing a close feint to the ground, and lost half the skin on her upper arm, peeling away from her like a potato skin to a metal grater. When she was thirteen, she had been charming a fire on a cool summer night, had used a little too much effort, and scorched her knees and thighs down to the second layer of tissue. Summer past she had accidentally magicked a nail through her palm while trying to fix a loose board in the garden shed. Two days before Bill's wedding she lost her footing while carrying a wine glass and sliced the veins and tendons of her wrist clean across.

The pain she felt at the casting of Carrow's Cruciatus was different and worse. Or maybe it was those things she remembered all at once and amplified. Inside her and outside of her and screwing into every tiny space of her body. She felt like the minnows she used to take from the pond for fishing bait when she was a child, smashing them into rocks for a wandless death. Gasping and _thrashing._

When the curse lifted, the reason for the earlier sickness in the room was plain, as Ginny immediately lost her stomach as well. The bile stung over her mouth and chin and along with the acid and the bitterness of her revisiting coffee, she tasted blood. She'd bitten through her bottom lip. Over her silenced coughing and hacking, the hot tears on her clammy face, someone in the class pointed out loudly, and in very sensitive words, that she'd also _pissed herself._

“Leave her there,” Ginny heard Carrow say.

“She's bleeding,” came Luna's voice.

“Is she? I don't see that...” Carrow walked to where Ginny was on the ground, curled over herself and she didn't remember falling there, and he stopped so that his shoes were in her bleary field of vision. He spoke very softly to her alone. “Any more _heroics_ against our esteemed _leader_ , Miss Weasley, and I will gladly keep you exactly in this spot all year.”

He wasn't talking about Smith anymore, or even Snape, she thought. Ginny trembled as she raised her face to the man looking down at her and knew he was talking about the person pulling all the strings. Carrow was telling her to stop resisting the Death Eaters, to stop fighting against You-Know-Who.

She lowered her chin, kept her gaze matched with Carrow's, and spat out a red little answer at his feet.

“Well.” Carrow sneered, moving his foot from her bloodied spit. Completing his previous thought as he looked her over, “all I see is a powerless, _pathetic_ muck-about in her place. _Petrificus Totalus._ ”

-o-

Professor Amycus Carrow let his first class with the Sixth Year students out a few minutes early, and directed them to walk around Ginny as they filed out of the room.

“No loitering,” she heard the man snap from where he stood at the doorway behind her. A silent beat and then the squeak of shoe soles pivoting over the wooden plank flooring. Carrow ambled his way in front of Ginny, crossed his arms in a miming of a thoughtful pose and then walked to the entrance of his office across the room. He lifted the spell on her from over his shoulder, “you're dismissed, Miss Weasley.”

He had decided he had won, Ginny supposed.

As her body adjusted to freedom of movement again, her hand found her wand and she flexed her fingers over the wood. She had a thought to return the favour to Carrow, to give back all and more what he'd dished out to her. For a long moment her heart pounded in her head and as she explored with her tongue the hole from where she'd bitten through her bottom lip, she considered whether or not it would be worth the fallout.

She decided, for several reasons, not to do anything but to collect herself and her things and leave.

Luna and Michael Corner were the only two comfortable or stubborn enough to stay in the hallway waiting for Ginny when she finally made her way out. The sight of her ex waiting to see her was surprising and mortifying on some level and weirdly reassuring in another way, considering how they had split. ...It felt like another life when that had happened.

Ginny had cleaned herself up but was shaking a little and both Luna and Michael noticed. The two shared a quick, meaningful glance, Luna's more reserved than the obvious trepidation white across Michael's face, and as a group, they all moved further down the corridor. At a corner, they stopped and hid in a windowed archway between sets of armour.

“Are you...” Michael started to say to Ginny and then shut his mouth, shrewd enough not to finish the trite question. He whispered instead, “Carrow's in his office then?”

Ginny rubbed at her neck and nodded.

“We should report him,” he insisted.

“To whom?” Luna asked, but it wasn't accusatory. She said, “is there a person capable of any worthwhile action at the moment?”

'McGonagall,' Ginny wanted to say, but then thought better of it. Any direct move taken by their professors would be a move against Snape, the school Governors (occupied by such open-minded men as Lucius Malfoy), _and_ the entirety of the Ministry. Too much push back and McGonagall could lose her post altogether and so Ginny held her tongue.

“This won't stand. Everyone will know about this by lunch,” Michael went on, increasingly nervous. “He did this to a Seventh Year, as well. An Unforgivable on no less than _two_ students.”

Ginny shook her head, exasperated suddenly. “Don't you get it? This is how it is now. Our parents were – _we_ were – daft to think Hogwarts would remain a safe haven.”

She had sensed it back at King's Cross. It was just everyone was slow to acknowledge and accept the truth. Even open torture wouldn't be enough for some, Ginny thought. As she knew it, if they couldn't see the abuse themselves, then there were those who would always insist, ' _it's not that bad_.'

“But it's a school,” Michael tried, the hope he had in his voice feeble.

Ginny felt her anger soften, turning to a weary pity. “We're not students here, Michael, we're hostages _._ ”

She didn't quite trust the halls as she said as much, thinking an unknown someone was listening. She shut her mouth on the subject. Busying herself with her bag, “any way, what's next on your schedule?”

“Divination,” from Michael.

“Potions,” Luna said, which was a relief for Ginny. “You too?”

“Yeah.”

“You might go round to Madame Pomfrey before.”

Ginny snorted at Michael's suggestion; he knew as well as she that the Cruciatus Curse didn't leave physical tells if used sparingly. “For what?”

But he motioned vaguely at her face, the dried spit and dribble of blood from her puncture wound still on her chin, and said, “at least for that...”

“I'll take care of it.” She waved the suggestion off. To Luna, “shall we?”

“Is that all?” There was a strange pause and Michael exhaled, blustered. He stared blankly at the floor a pace away and slowly shook his head. “I mean...that really just happened. Ginny. _That happened._ ”

“He did this as a show of dominance,” Luna offered. Her dreamy voice was academic in its thoughtfulness. “To stop any of us having a mind for rebelliousness, they've struck out at the ones they think of as the biggest threats.”

Ginny felt her mouth twist into something mocking a smile. “Ooh, well that's sweet of them to think of ickle me so highly...”

“So what, that might be the worst of it?” Michael said, unconvinced. He ran a hand through his hair, and made a half-laugh sound of exasperation. Lower in tone, and because he knew something of Ginny's personality, “but only if you don't retaliate and escalate, I would think.”

Ginny made a face and he caught it, and he frowned back at her. He rolled his eyes, relenting in their quiet stand off. She said, “if you can keep me in the know as to what's going on, Michael? I'd like to be able to prepare myself at this point, if we do act.”

Sighing, "of course, Gin. You know that."

Briefly, her reasons for dating the boy in front of her returned to Ginny and she was thankful for his support. As begrudged as it was.

“We will have to,” Luna murmured. “We will have to act against them, to be idle at this juncture would make us complicit to their ideology and aggressions.”

“It's why they want to break us first. The older students, I mean,” Michael said. He was addressing Luna, but his eyes were on Ginny with an almost apologetic sort of light. “It's like you said, they're thinning out the strongest students. We're older and more likely to be troublesome, to be leaders of some sort.”

“There's not going to be any complicity,” she promised Luna, trying for resolute and coming across a little grim. “But until then... until this...false pretence of learning crumbles... we're going to be late for class.”

“Tell everyone about Carrow,” Luna said to Michael. “They will want us to talk, but we need to control how the information is relayed in order to maintain the right perspective.”

“Spoken like the daughter of a print man. It's our best course of action,” he agreed. Wincing, he added, knowing it would be at some of her pride's expense, “sorry, Ginny.”

“Don't be.” Ginny shrugged. A small part of her was mentally saying 'told you so,' to all those who doubted her about the war and what was going to happen. “Go on, now. We'll talk.”

Michael gave an assertive nod, and before he left, assured them in a low mumble, “we'll have the old gang together soon, as well.”

When it was Luna and Ginny alone again, Luna asked, “are you well enough to go to Potions?”

She was quiet and respectful and very tactful, which Ginny appreciated, but also thought was unnecessary. With everything Ginny had experience already, she had a sense that she'd been through worse things than Carrow's curse.

“I'll be going.” But she had something to check first. “Did post come this morning?”

“Not that I noticed,” Luna said and it was entirely possible she had missed the usual large and lively flock of birds delivering mail.

“I'm going to see if Pig's there. I need to know if –”

“If that route of communication is tenable? It would be the natural place for them to start as they wish to cut us off from the outside, especially with the Floo Network access limited from the trunk raids,” Luna said. “Your housemate already had the idea to check. She went right after Carrow dismissed us.”

It was nice Ginny hadn't been the only one to consider it, but the fact it were likely already too late made her swear under her breath. Echoing the words, “it's really happening.”

For as much as she resented her parents at times for excluding her from _everything_ , she would have really liked to have seen them or spoken with them just then. And Fred and George, or Bill, or Harry, or Ron. She'd been tortured, didn't they know? The war wasn't happening around her, it was right this moment happening to her, and they might never appreciate as much.

“Even if they can control the students, the other professors will have ways to circumvent their obstacles,” Luna said. With a bit of wonder, “I can't imagine any Death Eater being more clever than our Professor Flitwick.”

Ginny sucked her teeth. “I really can't either.”

“Is there anything more we can do right now?”

“No,” Ginny answered, feeling bereft with herself for not being more like her brother. If only she were patient, observant, and calculating like Ron at a game of chess; if only she were like those who could see the board and all its players and the many possible moves in play.

“To Potions, then?”

“To the Dungeons,” Ginny agreed.

She was a player on the board and it was time she stopped reacting and started moving accordingly.

-o-

The man in front of him turned over the piece with a critical eye, appreciative of its design in his silent appraisal. His hands drifted over the engravings, smoothed a bit of the silver, tried and failed to open the latch.

“This is worthless to me,” he finally said.

“Nah, nah. Don't be that way. It's a fine bit of craftsmanship, there.” Mundungus sneered. “Surely someone like you can get that open in a jiff.”

The jeweller sighed. “I wouldn't dare. See right here? I know that jeweller's mark and I know his clientele. It doesn't take much more for me to extrapolate to whom this locket once belonged – and that family does not take kindly to strangers tinkering with their personal effects, alive or not.”

“It's silver, innit. Just melt the lot down. Surely there's some value in that.” No one wanted the damned thing, Mundungus thought. He couldn't hock an engraved locket, and the initials wouldn't budge from its surface no matter what spell he cast or potion he scrubbed into it. “Make an offer, eh?”

“I wouldn't dare. Don't come back to me with a piece like this again, Fletch, or our business transactions are done. You're enough of a headache these days as is.”

Mundungus scowled and snatched the locket back from the display top. He wasn't surprised at the man's hesitance; all of the dealers in Diagon Alley had been the same, and the only other place in Hogsmeade as well.

No one wanted the damned locket and neither did Mundungus. He just wanted to get something for it before tossing it. The thing had literally been draining him – he knew it. He'd been carrying it around for months already, and each day its worthlessness grew heavier in his pocket and his anxiousness grew more frenzied in his head, and couldn't bear the truth of a sunk loss. He needed to get rid of it. He needed to simply through it over his shoulder and accept the waste of perfectly fine silver.

His fingers traced the locket's outline in his pocket. He would ditch it once he had found something of greater value to replace it. Hogsmeade didn't have much to offer in terms of family heirlooms and hidden treasures, at least not without more effort than he would like to extend in his endeavour. There was really only one place with any potential and very little in security. At least after than little bit of trouble in the wall around the school grounds. But he could find something of interest in that half-giant's hovel, surely.

o o o

**Author's Note:**

> I just want to push at what we could have seen from characters and from themes in the story. Warning: This story gets dark and weird. But there's humor, too, so that's fun! :)


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